Our neighbors, Trip and Karen, had house guests for the past 2 weeks. Karen's sister and her kids were visiting from Florida. They went home yesterday. I didn't get a chance to meet Karen's sister until just before she left.
Before getting into how that took place, I have to tell you that I'm allergic to bees. Two years ago, I was outside pruning forsythia bushes and pulling up the runners that forsythia's send out each year. As I pulled up one runner, I obviously disturbed some ground bees and they quickly went on the attack. I ended up with 4 stings, all on my head. I ran into the house to get away from them. Within a matter of minutes, I started breaking out in hives and having shortness of breath. That soon became tightening in my chest. Kim called Steve, our friend who's an ER doctor. Steve came over, made certain I wasn't going to die (hooray!), had me take some Benadryl, and told me to get an appointment with an allergist. A week or so later, I had my skin prick test and found out I was allergic to bees, wasps, hornets, etc. I got my epipen prescription and that was that.
So, back to yesterday and how I met Karen's sister. I was outside doing some yard work. Earlier in the morning, I'd already escaped death once. We had a 35-40 foot tall tulip poplar tree snap in half in a storm earlier this month. The upper and lower halves were still connected by a good bit of bark so I had to get out my extension ladder, climb up, and saw the two pieces apart. I was worried that the bottom half would snap back and hit my ladder as it fell so I tied a rope around the dangling top half of the tree and had Kim and Jay out pulling on the rope as I cut the bark. Thankfully, Kim told me to only make a half cut and then join them back down on the ground so the three of us could try to pull the bottom half loose. Sure enough, as we pulled the bottom half loose, it snapped back, caught the ladder, and sent it crashing to the ground.
After that little debacle, I was feeling pretty good to be alive. I headed out front to de-limb a few more trees and prune some viburnum. The de-limbing went fine. Pruning was going OK, too -- right up until I reached into one of the bushes to make a cut and felt a sting on my right forearm. "$%@!," I exclaimed, as I started running. I could feel bees flying around my head. "@$!%," I yelled as I tried to get away from them. I was sprinting up the driveway, cursing and swatting at my head when I saw Karen's sister loading up her car for her return trip. There she stood, staring at me in amazement as I ran by. "Did you get stung?" she asked. "Yes, and I'm allergic" was all I shouted back as I continued on my mad dash towards the house.
That's how I met Karen's sister. I heard later in the day that she had gone right back inside and announced "Your neighbor just got stung by a bee and, boy, he was cursing up a storm." I'm glad I made such a good impression.
This is where the magic happens.
